Upper School Prize Distribution

2007

 

Madam Vice-Chairman, Distinguished Guests, Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

It gives me great pleasure in welcoming you all to the Old Grey Mother this afternoon, especially those who have travelled from afar, those older friends of the school who have scarcely missed a Prize Day in decades, those who still take an interest in the cups and trophies they or their families have presented, and those who have given up work to be with us on this occasion.

In particular, I want to welcome Dr David Humphreys as he interrupts for us his busy World Cup analysis duties with ITV.  I first asked David to do this for us several years ago and on each and every occasion in the Spring Term his answer was that he was not sure whether or not he would be on Autumn Ireland or Ulster duties.  More recently he would say that he was thinking of retiring but was not sure but when he could be our Guest of Honour.  Looking at how Ireland have done – and are likely to do – we would almost rather that he could not be here because he was still needed by Mr O’Sullivan, and would probably be doing a better job of running the Irish backline than has been happening for the last year or so! 

David Humphreys is a distinguished pupil from our respected rival grammar school in Ballymena: we don’t hold that against him (much) but he then went on to establish a really solid basis for his education by joining Dungannon Football Club, one of the eight foundation clubs of the IRFU and represented here today by our own Canon McCreary.  His grandfather was an eminent Headmaster of Coleraine Inst for many years and his parents too were prominent in sport, as are .  two sisters and brother Ian, having made substantial contributions to the local and national sporting scene.  David’s education in Law gave him a great opportunity to play rugby at Queen’s and then Oxford Universities.  He had played at all levels possible in representative teams including, in 1992, leading Irish Schools to a triple crown; scoring all of Oxford’s points in its Varsity Match triumph in 1995; leading Ulster to their single European Cup Final victory in 1999; and playing 74 times for Ireland, five of those as captain.  In 2003 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ulster for Services to Sport and an MBE in the Queen’s 2004 New Year’s Honours List.  The master of the drop-goal and a brilliant innovator with exciting unpredictability and huge physical courage (he didn’t wear that distinctive headgear without reason), David Humphreys is an unassuming and exemplary role-model on and off the field for all aspiring young people in sport and, despite the fact that he beats me at golf much too easily, he is very welcome indeed to RSD today. (Actually, he did show just a sign of weakness last week when he decided that he might make his ankle injury a good excuse for missing training today. However, when his team-mates heard he was doing this and coming here, they unanimously voted to change the training session to 6 o’clock so that he could be there!)

David Humphreys is quite clearly one who is blessed with huge natural talents – academic, sporting, leadership and, as you will find out this afternoon, human insight and wisdom.  Appropriately perhaps, my report today is built around the theme of talent.

Last year our whole-school focus was on Oracy (the spoken word) throughout the school: many pupils (and not a few teachers) have said how helpful and important it was to them as they too strive with notions of correctness and accuracy in a world where some think that anything goes as long as people understand it. This year our focus is on Numeracy, but also on the theme of Drilling for Talent in the young lives of our pupils.  I have often been struck by throwaway remarks about “naturally talented children”.  It is often said too glibly that ‘all children have talents’ and that it is important to exercise these.  Frequently we hear all sorts of people, using that well-worn cliché.  Indeed, if I had a pound for every parent who has told me – usually when something had gone wrong – that their child, was actually, really very talented, then I would be a much richer man than a teacher could ever be!  Usually such parents have in mind one area of talent.  Usually it is measured by contrast to themselves as teenagers, to the family tradition, or to their primary class-mates.  Rarely, is it too remarkable; rarely is it as obvious to others; rarely does it lead to prowess in the public or adult arena.  That is not to say that it is not true, but it is to say that you can only judge its accuracy by a higher and wider standard.  It is very definitely the task of a good school to emulate what they do in oil rigs: drilling deep for that hidden treasure. 

Believing as we do in RSD that every boy and girl has many different talents, our task is to strive to do what oil-riggers do.  To find the “black gold” of each generation,  we have to search, find, drill deep, bring it to the surface, get it to the right location, refine it, then let it do its job wherever it can be used.  THAT is what we as teachers in a grammar school must be constantly drilling for: the hidden or unused or unrecognised talents of our pupils - talents they may not know they have, may never have used, may only use to the minimum; we have to help them be refined and developed and then put to good use.  The best education is the exploitation of naturally occurring talent and without the drillers’ efforts it may never find its way to being totally effective.  Whether it is musical, sporting, debating, playing chess, in painting, wiring or lighting, walking on mountain-tops, leading a team or a club, entertaining us, we must be about striking oil and maximising the opportunities which that presents.  Even when it is crude, unrefined, unattractive, in the wrong environment,  hidden, unknown and unappreciated, our singular task is to bring it to the surface and to allow it to be effective in doing what it was supposed to do, particularly in the pursuit of knowledge, truth and wisdom for their own sakes.  We admire all those teachers who have that talent themselves, that drive and desire to help even the most unlikely of pupils to find and exploit their natural talents to maximum effect, before they leave school. Like oil there is a huge amount of it about, often undiscovered, waiting for the right moment to surface, or for the right teacher to tap into it.  It takes specialists who know what they are doing but are single-mindedly seeking for the oil in each pupil, never losing hope, always trying to inspire to refine, to apply it in the right way, place and time, and who are willing to rejoice when they strike oil.  It may not be activated for weeks, months or even years, but tap it we must and then look for every opportunity to help pupils to realise just how talented they are.

But it is a major operation and needs teachers to be constantly on the lookout for it:  it will not happen on its own. Sir Joshua Reynolds, that great English artist and rival of Gainsborough in the 18^th Century, said about the time RSD moved from the town to this site,

“If you have great talents, industry (effort) will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry (effort) will supply their deficiency.” 

How true!  Moreover I agree to an extent with Aldous Huxley when he claimed:

“There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all the virtues are of no avail.”

Well, of course brilliance and genius are rarer, but virtues and industry do go a long way to make up for the lack of these, which occur in just a few.  My view is that we can never do enough to find that oil, but even more that too many pupils do not do enough themselves to bring it the surface.

Analysing the Black Gold of our academic results therefore, I would like to bring out from the depths first of all our youngest pupils’ hard work.  This year saw the replacement of Key Stage 3 tests (which were really inadequate for grammar school pupils) with our own Transitional Certificate of Education, (TCE) being a mid-career point assessment of our pupils’ academic achievements here, and reflecting in a much more meaningful way how well they have performed in comparison with their grammar school peers in every, not just three, subjects.  In this we have sought to award excellence in individual subjects (and you can see the results in your booklet) as well as overall outstanding merit, with individual distinctions and credits in subjects and with gold, silver and bronze awards across the board.

Such has been the success of this first year innovation that already interest has been expressed by the Department of Education and the Inspectorate: the TCE could be the way ahead for education at this level in the Province, but we are happy that it has motivated our pupils much better and helped our parents to understand and evaluate much better their children’s performance three years after leaving primary school.

Our Form III showed its paces in the Annual mathematical Challenge with 31 Bronze, 8 Silver and three Gold Certificates, gained by Annie Kret, Emily Garvin and top scoring Simon Ferguson.  Our Forth Form mathematicians yet again gained amazing results in their accelerated GCSE maths exams with 82% gaining A* and A grades, and not a single pupil having less than a B.

In GCSE more than 80% of the 100 pupils had SEVEN or more passes, with one in five at  A* - our highest ever level by a considerable margin.  Nearly half of all the subjects sat were at A* or A grade.  Of particular note were our two girls, Mary Stewart and Grace Stafford, who gained a full hand of no fewer than 10 A* grades. They were closely followed by Ben & John Dilworth with 9A* and one A, and James Dilworth and Rosalind Haydock with 8A* and 2A grades.  Along with many other individual achievements of note these were superb achievements worthy of our highest praise. Interestingly, and more difficult than you might imagine, all eight of our Chinese Boarders in Form V gained A* grades in their Cantonese GCSE.

Our LVI too showed that they had made the transition to Sixth Form in some style, with an average of very nearly four subject passes each and yet with as strong a showing overall as the best year since this exam started in 2001.  I would single out for praise the four boys and two girls who gained 4 A grades: Shizuka Chan, Colin Forbes, Jonathan McCarter, Alastair McFarland, Ruth Reaney and Michael Reid.  They were joined by another 11 pupils (4 boys and 7 girls) who had three As and most of them a fourth subject with a B (out of the five pass grades).

True to their previous good form, UVI displayed huge determination and consistency. This year no fewer than 15 pupils have achieved straight A grades in all of their subjects.  Sue Ho, Jenni Dodds, Neill George, Jane Haydock, Evanna Hunter, Stacey Jennings, Ben Kennedy, Stephanie Meenagh, Andrew Mills, Becky Patterson, Paul Reaney and Matthew Symington (who also secured his place to read History at Cambridge) were the cream of the crop with Jennifer Anderson (our outstanding Head Girl), Grace Cuddy and Louise Dilworth each gaining a remarkable four A grades.  Another 13 pupils gained just one grade short of this full house.  All in all, just under 70% of the whole Upper Sixth Form achieved the top three of the five grades, A, B and C in all their subjects.  Out of 244 papers sat by RSD pupils there were just two subjects not passed – an all-time low.  Inside just a few days the majority of our Sixth Formers were placed in their chosen university courses and most of the rest found what they needed for access to Higher Education, thanks to the work of Miss Chestnutt and her Careers Department.  I want to pay tribute to UVI leavers and their outstandingly committed and competent teachers for these magnificent results – the outcome of drilling for academic talent, finding it, tapping into it and then exploiting it for the foundations of our Sixth Formers’ careers.  I have to say that much of this, whilst often natural, has only been achieved by consistent, committed and sacrificial work over weeks months and years.  Back in their Form I days many may not have been considered to be that naturally talented, but the relentless pursuit of those talents has resulted yet again in striking a rich vein of black gold. 

Once again RSD figured in the top 10 in Northern Ireland Grammar Schools and in the top 100 state schools in Britain.  In September 2007 Grammar Schools out-performed the expensive fee-paying Independent Schools for the first time ever at GCSE in A* and A grades.  Politically it would be an act of enormous folly for any politician or group of politicians to wish to destroy such a system which yet again has outstripped by a considerable margin the rest of the UK.  Sadly, there are just some people, it appears still, and we are having to continue the struggle to defend what is the envy of the western educational world.  Our school, and indeed all our schools, also achieve this for children from all backgrounds regardless of wealth.  Thanks to the enormous support of our parents, pupils and former pupils, the messages sent out to our politicians have been strong and consistent.  But whilst we have made significant progress there are still battles to be fought and arguments to win, and win them we can if politicians and civil servants are prepared to set aside doctrinaire politics and outdated ideology, and to accept the democratic will of the vast majority of the Northern Ireland people as well as the unassailable logic of our case.  Again, we insist, the problem lies in what is being taught to less academic pupils, which so often disaffects them before they have finished, and also in the unnecessarily overcrowded and often irrelevant curricula at primary and secondary levels which prevent many teenagers from doing what they wish and are able to study.  

Education wrongly used can, like oil, lead to the horrors of commercial risk-taking, misapplication, unrealistic expectation, over-exploitation and wastage, only in schools this takes the form of numerous poorly thought through initiatives, a raft of increasingly bizarre innovations and throwing money at half-baked schemes which come not from the professionals but from politicians, academic theorists and decision makers in remote corridors of power who have little practical or professional background and even less qualification for devising or implementing such changes.  I repeat again what I have tried to emphasise many times in recent years: children’s lives are far too precious to take risks with “bright ideas” which at best have little support from the professionals and at worst have been hatched by those in government as a response to misconceived problems, dressed up in vacuous educational jargon, and founded on spurious, so-called “progressive” educational ideology.  This is and has been destroying the educational system in Great Britain and the USA.  If we let it prevail in Northern Ireland it will do the same for us in not very many years.  We will reap a whirlwind of educational catastrophe for decades to come.  Beware also those who try to proclaim that all of this is for the benefit of the rapidly changing world we live in: neither to they know how the world is going to change, nor do they properly appreciate just how quickly schools and teachers do adapt if is clear where that change should come, if it can be funded without harm to the financing of the system in place and if the knock-on effects will not damage what schools are already achieving.  That is the least we can expect from our new Assembly.

La Rochefoucauld, the great French Philosopher, once said that it is not enough to have great qualities; we should also have the management of them.   That is what teachers are here for. Our enormously talented pupils managed to make leaps and bounds in many areas of the co-curriculum (that is what we do beyond the classroom) in the fields of sport, music, and other cultural activities.  To do this requires the combined and varied talents of an outstanding team of Staff, Vice-principals, Ancillary and auxiliary Staff who are dedicated, selfless and seek to drill constantly for that elusive but very rich seam of talent which exists amongst your children.  It requires a totally supportive team of hard-working governors too who share our vision, desire only the very best for RSD pupils, have the courage and tenacity to resist the fads of politicians and bureaucrats and who are prepared to take risks and back our professional judgement, even against the prevailing “wisdom” from on high, when we feel that there is a better and a proven way of achieving the goals which we know are best for our pupils and their future in society.  I am so grateful for all of this community of endeavour, aspiration and vision and our Governors’ strong confidence in backing their own judgement against all-comers, whatever the cost. 

RSD over four centuries has eminently typified this spirit and it is proven to be right time and time again when throughout the realm there is much failure, mediocrity and inadequacy.  I believe and hope that all our parents realise this to be an essential part of why their children thrive in RSD and leave it, (as you may perceive in what Matthew Symington will be saying shortly about his time in the school,) well-equipped for whatever life and the world of employment has to offer them..

Unlike last year we have just two full-time newcomers to welcome onto the Staff, although I want to pay tribute to the outstanding qualities of our younger staff who in no respect are overshadowed by the longer serving teachers, such is the quality of their work and involvement in school life.  They settle quickly into our ethos and contribute very signally with their many talents.  One arrived last January: Mr Keith McGuinness is a Scot who gained an Honours Degree at St Andrew’s, had the good sense to marry a Northern Ireland lady and has come to us from Armagh Royal School to be Head of Computer Science and Information Technology in RSD.  Also we welcome to the Physics Department Miss Debbie McCombe, a former Deputy Head Girl of Portadown College, who has a good Honours degree in Astro-physics from Queen’s, but also brings a wealth of talent to the sporting life of the school too.  She replaces Mr Arnold who, for family reasons, has moved to work in Coleraine after three years here.  Dr Alistair McCarley departed after due to pressure of responsibility at the FE College after pioneering in a most effective way here the introduction of A-level Politics most successfully.  In his place we have been joined in a part-time capacity by Mr Gerard Ferran, who was educated in Dungannon and has both an Honours degree in Social Science and a Masters degree in Politics.  He is a young teacher of considerable energy and enthusiasm for his subject.  As a new Classroom Assistant we have secured the services of Mrs Heather Cuddy.  Sadly, we have lost on retirement the enormous abilities of Mrs Frances Compton and Mrs June Anderson from the Bursar’s staff after over 20 years of dedicated work in a team that goes back to the 1980s and even earlier into the era of Mrs Kathleen Hill whom I am delighted to see back today..  In their places we welcome Ms Christine Kerr and Miss Penny Bunting.  To assist our excellent Head Groundsman, Mr Ferry, in place of Mr Dennis Bell, we have appointed Mr Ian Hobson, a young man with excellent skills and qualifications in grounds maintenance. Most of these newcomers are either seated on the platform or in the Hall today, so will you give them all a memorable welcome to their first Prize Distribution in RSD? 

Now let’s look at the oil-field of other non-academic endeavours where talent can be exploited in so many different ways. What follows is but a selection of that metaphorical field: the full range will be found in the Magazine and/or in my unabridged version of this Report on our website.

In Rugby we had a somewhat disappointing season but managed to finish strongly by sharing the Ulster Schools’ Bowl with Sullivan Upper School at Lisburn having been extremely unfortunate to lose away to Regent House in the Schools Cup in a match which was snatched from us unkindly in the last few minutes.  Ben Kennedy captained strongly by character and example (as he did as Head Boy) and several of the team were selected for higher honours.  He and Nathan Patterson played for Ulster Schools and, but for injury, Ben’s twin, Toby, would also have played.  Our usual third of a XV played for Ulster South Country.  The Junior Teams enjoyed their fair share of success but the  one outstanding contribution of note was Peter Nelson’s 270 points total on our U14XV which made him the leading points scorer in the School last season: quite an achievement.  Adam Stinson has already this season played for Ulster against Yorkshire and played last week in the final trial for the Probables XV.

In Hockey Mrs Hinds’ absence on extended maternity leave meant that Mr Reid and Miss Topley – an outstanding young deputy for the former – were fully taken up by their labours for the senior side and for the second season in a row they were a very young side with much to learn but simply unable to cope with more experienced teams from the large schools.  In many matches the girls succumbed by a single goal, but their greatest achievement however came early and promises greater things to come: they managed to defeat an Ulster School’s select XI at the opening of our magnificent Astro Turf facilities. Whilst dry for the ceremonial opening – including our excellent bagpipe band, coached by former pupil, Glenn Ferry, the later weather that day tested even that beautiful surface to the utmost and when the new floodlights were switched on the gloom was dispersed by their superb aura.  This gloom was further dispersed by the second game of that special opening day when our U15XI beat the King’s Hospital School, Dublin 2-1. The U13XI was the most successful side sharing the Mid-Ulster league title with Killicomaine JHS.  During the season a number of girls were selected for regional and provincial squads: Judith McMullan and Grace Cuddy were selected for the SELB U17 team with Judith being made captain. Jane McConnell was a member of the Area Board U15 team which won the inter-board tournament.

 

Both the rugby and hockey senior teams had a beneficial tour in December to Barcelona where coaching and training together on tour brought a much heightened sense of teamwork and camaraderie which are at the heart of most of sporting endeavour in RSD. We are looking forward not only to the visit of Dilworth school next week for their tri-nations tour, but even more we anticipate the return visit to New Zealand and Australia for both the girls’ and the boys’ 1st squads in July, 5 years after our first joint trip down under.  As before, it will be a highlight which the players will never forget for the rest of their lives.  We are greatly encouraged by the support of our parents and the rest of the School in the fundraising side of the trip and we are hoping for sponsorship from the community which has always been generous in the past. 

Speaking of Dilworth it is, you may recall that the Chairman and I along with our wives represented the School in Auckland in March 2006 at our daughter school’s Centennial Celebrations when along with the Archbishop of All-Ireland I had the supreme honour of being one of the speakers at the major events held over a week in March this year.  I was privileged to bring the warm greetings of our school to a thousand strong gathering in Auckland.  One of the things which went down particularly well was the U13XV Haka, coached by our tutors, Sam Feast, Ricky Hoeata and Joel Wiapu, and performed via DVD in front of a packed arena of Kiwis having been recorded in the birthplace of their founder, our illustrious Former Pupil, James Dilworth, whose descendants are even today in RSD as pupils. His educational descendants are represented by an excellent trio of Dilworth Tutors in Billy Walker, Cade Robbins and Bryce McCallum.  Last September we welcomed the European stages (in London and Dungannon) of the Centenary Celebrations and the launch of their superb new History, beautifully written and illustrated by former Headmaster, Dr Murray Wilton, in a magnificent volume now presented to the School.  Just a few weeks ago we sent out as Scholars Sharon Condy, Caroline Duff, David Chan and Richard Burns to take over from their predecessors in the exchange scheme which Dr Wilton and I instigated 20 years ago and which has now seen over 60 of our pupils benefiting from this wonderful opportunity enjoyed by few, if any, other schools in the UK. 

Another innovation was the advent of new outdoor nets for cricket and proper nets for golf, which saw over a dozen young golfers, of both genders, enjoying the coaching of local professional, Barry Hamill, who runs the Golf Academy outside Dungannon. In the Darren Clarke League 8 pupils gained certificates and Amy Williamson was awarded a cap as the best girl and our first from RSD to enter the scheme.

The summer weather for once was dry if not hot and sunny and so both cricketers and golfers were able to take advantage of our fine facilities.  The Cricket 1^st XI team, under Mr Canning’s skilful coaching, experienced modest success, but nowadays the season is so affected by examinations and home study leave that it is difficult to gain continuity unless the boys go on to play for the Town Club in the summer holidays. Well led by Richard McFarland who top-scored with a fine 61 against Bangor Grammar, the boys put in some good performances…Richard Murphy’s 4 for 9 in the Portora match was pleasing and James Fairless was selected for the Ulster Schools trial.

In Athletics again we saw a large number of girl and boy athletes taking their talents onto higher levels, with our Victor Ludorum age groups being awarded to Gareth Gibson and Christine Kelly (Minors), Peter Nelson and Laura McKinney (Juniors), Anas Smaali and Janice Willis (Intermediates), and Shane Swaile and Gayle Johnston (Seniors).  26 of our pupils qualified for the District Championships.  Along with Gayle and Janice, Stephanie Lawson and Helen Salter qualified for the Ulster Finals, as did Sophie Swaile and Samantha McCurdy of Form III at the Junior events and along with the four relay runners of Caitlin Bain, Megan Holland, Tanya prior and Stephanie Oliver in the Minors and Christine Kelly who has been selected for this year’s regional development training over the winter.  Shane Swaile gained an outstanding 3rd place in the Ulster Senior High Jump Finals.

Our Form I Tennis team won the Ulster Minor Girls Plate Competition, defeating Banbridge Academy and Killicomaine before overturning Methodist College in the semi-finals and going on to defeat Ballyclare HS in the Final.

This year our Drama Society saw the advent of a new Producer to follow on from Mrs Hobson after her two dozen years in production at RSD.  Mr Moore’s production of Guys and Dolls, a musical we had last done in the year of Amalgamation in 1986, exceeded all expectations, given the large but unavoidable problems we encountered last year with staff absence and unavailability.  It was, quite simply, a massive success, establishing Mr Moore’s credentials strongly on his debut here.  This year’s choice (Theatre of Blood) will be particularly challenging and I can sure that you are in for a for a wonderful production with, however, a few shocks!  In the main roles of Guys & Dolls outstanding individual performances were given by Katy Rea, Matthew Symington, Evanna Hunter, James Williamson, David Sterritt and Richard Burns, as well as a host of supporting actors and actresses and a wonderful backstage crew who gave us four magnificent nights of pure entertainment of a very high quality.

In society as in school, we must learn to honour talent in every branch of achievement on grounds of excellence alone.  So here follows some less well known but equally meritorious activities.  In Shooting we enjoyed a new lease of life under the eagle eye and enthusiastic minds of Mrs Straghan and former Staff members, Mr Bill Dickson and Mr Andrew Kelly. Our team won several friendly competitions against strong opposition and looks like attracting large numbers again to take advantage of the fine facilities we enjoy for .22 rifles.  The highlight for the Club was a tour at Easter to Scotland for 4 boys and 4 girls, with Claudia McClung scoring a double top mark and fine scores too by Arnold Cheung, Stacey Irwin and Stefan Hill.  Our younger shooters too made major progress during the year and promise well for this season’s competitions. Andrew Nesbitt, Suzanne Magowan and Liz Hegan all benefited from coaching from Belgian Team Coach and German International Herbert Zimmermann.  Claudia, who only commenced shooting in Form V, shot so well that she was selected to shoot in the Scottish Open and for Northern Ireland U21 team at Bisley in August. As a result she was picked for the Great Britain U21 team and now has her sights on the Commonwealth Games in two years as she has been selected for trials in Jersey. 

Our very young Show Jumping Team under Mrs McCarthy (formerly Miss Currie) came fourth in the Ulster Schools’ event out of 24 teams most of which were made up of Sixth Formers. Chloe Burton (Form II) won 2nd prize in the Area Board’s Christmas Card competition.  Lois McFarland (Form IV) won a prize awarded by the German Tourist Board to travel to the great cities of Bonn and Cologne with 10 other pupils from around the UK.  Out in Spain, Nicky McKelvey of Form V performed with great credit in skiing, representing Ireland at the European Youth Olympic Festival.

For the first time ever the School hosted the Northern Ireland Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award ceremony in honour of its high success rate in the Bronze and Silver Awards, one of two in NI, at which 100 young people from all round the Province received their Silver Badges.  28 Form V pupils completed their Silver Award and 16 their Gold.  Some 30 pupils will complete their Silver this year and another 20 pupils will attempt to finish their Gold Award.  It was a particular delight to see David Chan being the first ever Chinese Boarder in Northern Ireland to receive the Gold Award from the Duke of Edinburgh at Hillsborough Castle.  Miss Kelly and several colleagues spend long hours in supervising the preparation, ferrying pupils to outlying remote parts and in advising them on their paperwork. It is a really remarkable and totally rewarding scheme.

Amidst the usual round of musical events with continuing large numbers I would have to pick out as perhaps the highlight of the whole school year the Choir’s selection and then participation in the Southern Board Area’s annual concert at the Ulster Hall in May.  This year they were accompanying the full orchestra in a moving performance of extracts of Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man which brought an appreciative, packed Ulster Hall to its feet in tribute to the highly polished performance,  which the experienced BBC presenter credited as being one of the most moving he had ever experienced. The Choirs and Band also performed at concerts and the Duke of Edinburgh Presentation, gaining many further accolades.  Amongst many others, David Sterritt, James Williamson, Laura Hall and John Dilworth are worthy of particular praise for their many fine performances on Percussion, cornet, saxaphone and piano respectively. These were of a quality which would stand comparison with the top adult performers anywhere in the UK and David has been selected to go to Trinity College in London.  Aaron Courtenay on violin and Katrina Hunter’s harp skills deserve honourable mention from our Spring Concert.  It is very evident that the work of Mrs Walker with our strings and Mr Batchelor with our choirs and band is simply of an astonishingly high quality and few schools can boast of the standards achieved here for our young musicians.  Again, these are natural talents, but they take long hours of practice and perfecting to refine and make even more acceptable.

Thomas Wolfe the great American novelist of the last century said: “If a man has a talent and he cannot use it, he has failed.  If he has a talent and taps only half of it, he has partly failed.  If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men can ever know.” 

That is what we as teachers must be about in this school all the time with all our pupils, but we need parental support to ensure that those hidden resources are not allowed to remain hidden or undeveloped or just unused.

It is important too that we drill tenaciously for a talent of caring. Our Charities Committee has again quietly raised many thousands of pounds with the whole school through our main sponsored events of Walk and Funfair as well as many other events and projects like Children in Need and Red Nose Day for needy causes and this most important part of our school’s social awareness and concern is amongst the very best things our pupils do, quietly and unostentatiously – a crucial element of charitable work.  Equally, our SU continues to develop the important spiritual dimension Christian character and witness in regular meetings throughout the year, including the famous House Parties which seem to stretch the Staff reserves of sleep to their limits – I don’t know who looks more exhausted when they return from these trips, just that the staff don’t’ seem to recover for a week afterwards!

I could do more justice to the many other clubs and societies, but time alone prevents this.  However, many are recorded in our fine new experimental Magazine in a format which I hope every family has acquired and every Former Pupil too. This has been our new Editor, Mrs Jackson’s first year and she is looking for feedback on the new format from everyone.

This year our School Councils have spent time examining many aspects of school life and work, but the most significant was, I judge, the decision to develop a Declaration on Racism, for all pupils to volunteer to sign up to: this is one of the biggest issues to come to Dungannon over the years with one in ten inhabitants of the greater Dungannon Borough District now representing over two dozen nationalities from Europe and South America . Although still not completed, it has received interest from other parts of the Province and could well be adopted further afield during 2007-8.

A major strand of the year has been our whole-school oracy project which is unique in the UK as yet and may well be adopted by the authorities alongside Literacy and Numeracy (this year’s theme).  I amused myself last night in thinking how my Prize Day speech might go if it was in school lingo or very questionable English.
            “Ladies on’ Genalmen, I wish yous all welcome today and hope yez is inturasted in the program wot we of put together like and that you’s ‘ll all stay fer a wee cupatay til chat with them teachers there, like, who is teachin’ yer kids an’ all, ye know, how to speak proper an’ stuff…”. I better not go on!

Ladies & gentlemen, if a school’s quality were to be judged by its oracy skill and more importantly its academic activities alone, this would have been a good year.  If its qualities were to be judged by its sporting and other cultural achievements then this would have been a good year.  However, to assess a school’s quality by activities and achievements alone would not rate too highly in my book – nor should it be the most important factors for parents, pupils and governors.  Rather, I would want to ask whether or not our leaving pupils had turned out to be young men and women of character, integrity and pleasantness.  The American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked that “talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.”  What he really was saying was that talents without integrity or character and wisdom are  useless. At the end of the day, when we have rightly extolled results and achievements, admired and praised, when the clapping has died away, what remains about the Leavers is what the School should always look to first.  Can they be proud of a school which has given them not just knowledge, information, skills and abilities, but which has produced from the crude oil, people who will go on to lead in their chosen field with honour, with decency and with total integrity?  This is the highest goal of our school, whether in sport or drama or study or any one of the myriad of pursuits over their seven years here.  This can only in my view be based on a sound bedrock of moral, social and spiritual values. The most striking feature for me of the biblical view of talents is that in the parable the fellow who got just one talent and did not use it was extremely harshly dealt with and got no sympathy at all. It pains us to see some pupils who stand apart from most forms of involvement and almost invariably suffer in a variety of ways including their academic progress.  That is what happens when the talent is buried.

However, looking at this year’s leavers I am very proud of them as I see all their achievements and results.  I feel confident that they understand about how, in the end, all that will stand for little if it not accompanied by those higher values.  Time alone will tell, but I am deeply encouraged by the generations of RSD young men and women who now populate the public and private theatres of life throughout the world.  We as a staff will always strive to tap into that lasting and invaluable oilfield of talent and seek to ensure that it is of lasting benefit to our community both here in Northern Ireland and also abroad.

RSD is indeed an immensely rich oil-field of talent, but one which will take all the resources we have at our disposal to tap so as to ensure that as little as possible will remain undiscovered.  In this we need, plead for and expect the support of every pupil and all parents if we are to have maximum success with every individual. 

In 2008 we will be celebrating in style with our four Jacobean sister schools the Quatercentenary of the first charter.  A year of joint activities and ventures will stretch us all to the limits in what will be new territory, with much public and media attention.  It is just one of the challenges and opportunities to be grasped and one which will see us call upon all our ingenuity and reserves to strike another rich oil-field.  I hope that throughout the coming Quatercentenary year and beyond, every single pupil and teacher will rise to discover many hidden talents.

So, Madam Vice-Chairman, I have the huge honour and very great pleasure to present my Report on the life and work of RSD, a school of outstanding staff and pupils, and one with which I always feel immensely proud to be identified and constantly privileged to lead.