Chairman's Report
By John Parcell
Chair of the Board of Governors

The text of a speech at the College’s Speech Day and Prize-giving, July 2007

I will take just a few minutes to remind you of what a very good school this is, and point out once again how far we have travelled in the last six or seven years.  Some of you will be relatively new parents, or students, or staff and will not have heard about this before.  Others will have heard, but I believe it’s right to keep reminding ourselves of our progress - from time to time.  That said, it’s vital we don’t become complacent, so I’ll finish by looking at the challenges the next few years will bring.

These are the most significant ways in which we have advanced since the difficult days of the late 90’s, when the school was - becalmed - with low pupil numbers and a large deficit of pay, work, and investment.

Our first step was to redefine the school’s aims.   We set two over-riding goals.  First, to continue to provide the best possible individual nurture for children of all abilities in small classes in an attractive environment.  Second, to expand pupil numbers in order to generate growing surpluses - for reinvestment.

Our next step was to establish a five-year strategic plan, with clear targets against which to measure our progress.  That plan is based on listening to our stakeholders, and identifies about 15 core targets.  Each target carries objective measures, and milestones to be achieved term by term and year by year along the way.  Moreover, those targets are there to be achieved as a whole, and in a balanced way.  It would be no use, say, paying off bank debt if that were to be at the expense of rewarding our staff decently.

Looking back to our first Plan five years ago, I am pleased to say that we have met or exceeded the targets we set back then.

•            We have grown pupil numbers in the main school by 35% in a flat market.

•            We have reinvested growing financial surpluses to make substantial progress on the key tasks we identified.

•            In particular,  with further good pay increases in May and September, we now offer our teaching staff competitive salaries.

•            We have installed a fully effective management team, including a Deputy Head who is leading a significant programme of teaching imnprovement, and a Bursar who has established financial control and full business and HR procedures.  We also now have good governance procedures across the board.  For example, we list all our risks carefully, weigh them, and take deliberate steps to eliminate or at least reduce them.

•            We have set up an effective team with adequate resources for the basic maintenace of our historic buildings and park.  You will have seen improvements for yourselves.

•            We have modernised our facilities and educational materials, including IT.  Adrian King is to be thanked too for leading the fundraising for the sports pavilion.

•            We have made a start on paying down the longstanding bank debt.

•            Stoke College is now one of the most successful small schools in its region, and is increasingly recognised as such by its peers, by its stakeholders and – more gradually – by the wider community.

The rest of what I want to tell you concentrates on challenges for the next year or two.  With perhaps one cultural digression along the way.  The Governors are proud of what has been achieved, yet we are also conscious that - in a school - hard-won gains can evaporate rapidly.  In the first place schools are organic entities, which depend on energy, spirit, and human resilience for their results.  They cannot – unlike many commercial businesses – be cloned or run to an intelligent formula.  Each is a unique animal.

Secondly, the economics of an independent school are tough.  What’s called “operational gearing” is very high, in other words costs are largely fixed and so small numbers of new joiners or leavers can have a disproportionate impact on a year’s investment plan.  Schools are also labour-intensive, with costs which tend to rise with or faster than general inflation.  Finally, at Stoke College we lack the cushion of investment funds accumulated over time.

So while we are determined to go on striving to build our institution, we can see clearly some of the new challenges and opportunities ahead.

In the first place, it not possible that we could keep on growing the school at the same pace as we have in the recent past.  Many of the older year-groups are full or close to it.  We will not abandon our policy of keeping classes very small, and keeping the ratio of teachers to pupils among the highest in East Anglia.  Small classes and individual nurture are at the very core of our ethos.  That means that our only significant opportunity to grow further now lies with the younger years of our Junior school, and in our Nursery School which operates just up the village street.  We will be looking very closely at both to see how we could reposition them more attractively for prospective parents, market them better, and reorganise so that they work more closely as part of a single coherent offer.

Second, we shall be ceasing this month - after many years - to let our premises to holiday groups of students, mainly from overseas.  That business brought a small profit which was helpful in the lean years.  But it caused a lot of wear and tear on our premises and on some of our staff, especially maintenance and catering, and it was a distraction for management.  The end of holiday letting means that we can begin to reclaim our beautiful 17th century stable block for our own use, meaning that we can improve our facilities for teaching a number of subjects.  Refurbishment will be a long job on a strict budget.  But over time, the extra space gives us the flexibility to move activities around and so improve other buildings too. 

Beyond that, we are talking to the local authority and English Heritage about the structural restoration of our historic buildings.  And, as we are just now finding out, our buildings are truly, truly historic – far more historic, in fact, than we had realised.

Now forgive me a digression here.  As part of the application process, we have this year commissioned both a historical architect – to produce a detailed conservation plan for the buildings – and an architectural historian, to research their past.  The historian has uncovered some amazing new information – in fact, it’s felt a bit like the TV series “TIME TEAM”.  He says:

•            “Stoke College is a building of national historic importance that incorporates a substantially intact late-medieval collegiate Dean’s Lodging once occupied by Matthew Parker, the first Post-Reformation Archbishop of Canterbury.”  “Its true significance was recognised only during the course of the present survey.”  It was Parker who planned the English Reformation together with his Cambridge colleagues, and it was here that they planned it, at the very comfortable college for priests which Parker ran.  That institution was also called Stoke College, by the way. 

•            Just to give you two more examples, the historian also says: “The buildings of Stoke College also include a very fine redundant dovecote of the late-15th century that preserves some of the finest decorative medieval brickwork in Britain. Standing to the west of the modern gate is the park wall which documentary evidence suggests may be among the earliest brick walls in the country, dating in part from the 1460s.”

Now, as well as history, all this activity has also generated an immensely detailed plan for the future restoration and care of the buildings.  One way or another, we now have to fulfil it - perhaps over 10 or 20 years.

So if the first challenge is to find some more room to grow, and the second group of challenges concerns our physical site, the third group naturally concerns education.  John Gibson and Matthew Parker – the modern Matthew Parker, by another strange historic coincidence - will be telling you about the major gains of recent years – gains which have led to good exam results as well as improvements in the broad and balanced education which we seek for all our pupils.  The longer-term challenge is to maintain the pace of improvement throughout the school from a base which is already strong – improvements in lessons and methods, plus new and better facilities.

Finally, I want to thank all our parents and governors.  Above all I want to thank our staff, both teaching staff and all the others with other vital skills – to thank you for your hard work, your perseverance, and your steady professionalism.  Without the active and constant support of all our stakeholders, the school’s achievements would be less and its challenges greater.

I hope that gives you a clear picture of where Stoke College stands today.  As always, I’m happy to listen to any stakeholder – in person, by email, or on the phone.  Meanwhile, thank you for listening to me.

Chairman's Report
By John Parcell
Chair of the Board of Governors

The text of a speech at the College’s Speech Day and Prize-giving, July 2006

Good morning.  I’m John Parcell, and I chair the governing body of Stoke College.  Last year I stood up here for the first time.  I gave you a short but (I think) totally frank account of the challenges which our school had faced up to  - and  overcome - in recent years.  And I went on to show you a fresh picture of where we intended to take this excellent small independent school of ours over the next five years. 

I don’t plan to repeat all that historical background again today.  But I can tell you this.  Ladies and gentlemen, students ---- the sun is continuing to shine on Stoke College.

As you know, we have two over-riding aims.  First, to continue to provide the best possible individual nurture for children of all abilities in small classes in an attractive environment.  Second, to expand pupil numbers, by 50% eventually, in order to generate growing surpluses for reinvestment.

Stoke’s educational strength is deep rooted.  We dependably provide ---- broad and balanced development ---- to pupils of every kind.  We do this by identifying each pupil’s personal capacities, and encouraging the pupil to make the most of them. At the same time encouraging children to take responsibility for themselves and those around them, so they grow up with an independent outlook and the confidence to take the initiative when needed.

Now - I’m very pleased to tell you – the outside world is increasingly recognizing our value.  Pupil numbers have continued to increase throughout the academic year now ending.  Numbers are set to increase again at the start of the next academic year after the summer holiday.  By September, we are confident we will have well over 200 pupils in the main school.  That’s about one-third more than we had when I joined this Board six years ago.  Very few schools in Britain have achieved growth at that rate.  We still have some capacity in the Nursery and in the younger forms in the Junior School, but by September the Senior school and the upper forms of the Junior school will be largely ---- full.  Waiting lists will be the next development.

That success is enabling us to reinvest in our school at an accelerating rate.   To strengthen our financial stability by steadily paying off our bank debt.  More excitingly, to reinvest in our infrastructure and in the progressive improvement of our historic site and its buildings.  To reinvest in educational facilities and our teaching processes.  To reinvest in good marketing and sound administration.  And above all to reinvest in staff of every kind – teachers and support staff alike.

Our rate of progress means that many, many small improvements are taking place at once.  Let me just give you a few examples.

First, the infrastructure.  We now have substantial teaching activity in the main house.  Sad and under-used until recfently, this fine 18th century building is now the vibrant heart of the school.   Our maintenance team – five people where originally there was just one – has also transformed the look of the non-permanent buildings this year.  They have recovered our century-old gardens from the advancing jungle.  They have brought the appearance of the sports fields up to a high standard, so we can hold our heads high when competing schools arrive.  And thanks to the fund-raising of Senior Teacher Adrian King, we will shortly have a fiune new pavilion there.  Regrettably, the legal exposures forced us to stop opening our grounds for the local community’s recreation.

Our ancillary services are improving too.  Until we met some staffing difficulties in the last few months, our catering had been way ahead of the norm for UK schools.  We have made new arrangements now so that from September we will be redoubling our commitment to healthy eating, with a new emphasis on local produce and freshness.  We’ll be running an extra bus, reflecting our growing popularity in the direction of Saffron Walden.  And we are investing and staffing up to develop our boarding facilities too.

There are a large number of ongoing adjustments and improvements in our educational resources and our teaching.  Deputy Head Matthew Parker will be telling you more about that.  I’ll just point out two instances.  A year ago we introduced Business Studies as a new GCSE subject, and this been overwhelmingly popular.  In terms of technique, “data projectors” are electronic blackboards which enable teachers to pull any useful material off the web and incorporate it seamlessly into their own lesson material in front of a class;  week by week they are changing the way we teach and learn here. 

The way we run the school has improved vastly in the last 2-3 years.  To cite just one example, we put in this year a complete set of modern policies and procedures governing what used to be called Personnel issues, now known as “Human Resources” or HR.  We need it, becausing the tide of government and EU regulation is rising strongly; the penalties for any error are increasingly severe.  By trial and error, we are learning more each term about how to market the school, and we now have a good understanding of vital business factors including competitors, market demographics and the preferences of actual and prospective parents.  Next year we plan to employ some professional market research to refresh our understanding.  Given our very low starting point, it is wryly pleasing to see more and more schools in East Anglia coming to us for advice on business matters.  I’m very confident now about the strength of the management team here at Stoke.

Among the non-executive governors, there are quite a few changes. 

• Carole McKenny is retiring at the end of her term as Staff Givernor, and we’ll miss her sensitive and comprehensive understanding of the College’s operations.  I look forward to welcoming Elizabeth Hewlett in her place. 
• Linda Howard has energetically represented the parents, and is retiring at the end of her term too.  We await her replacement next term. 
• Viriginia Lavender, a fomer teacher here, retired also, and we are in discussion with a potential replacement who has a distinguished teaching record.
• Mary Beth Fitch has joined the Board and brings us strong legel and commercial insight, as well as the perspective of a parent.
• Finally, Gordon Hatchett, chairman of the local Parish Council and an expert in child protection, also leaves us shortly on retiring to Norfolk. 

So overall this is an opportunity for us to renew and to rebalance the Coillege’s Board.
Finally, about our staff.  Stoke is an attractive environment in which to work, yet we have also been concerned to pull back the gap which had grown between our teachers’ pay and state-sector rates.  We have now – I am pleased to say - given our staff a pay increase ahead of the state sector for five years in succession.  This is indeed a question of fairness – but it is also an issue of motivation, and of our ability to recruit and retain high-quality people into the future.  There is further to go, but in the last two years we find we are building increasingly strong shortlists of able and attractive candidates whenever we advertise a post.  We want to reward the loyalty of our long-serving staff, and we want to attract the very best when new opportunities come up.
This is an organization which depends on its people more than any other I know.  I want to thank all our staff – not just our teachers, but also our hard-working admin and support staff – for an excellent year.  And I want to thank our parents and our other stakeholders for their support.  And, finally, thank you all - for listening.

Chairman's Report
By John Parcell
Chair of the Board of Governors

The text of a speech at the College’s Speech Day and Prize-giving, July 2005

The background

Good morning. My name is John Parcell. My younger son, Will, was a pupil at Stoke and that made me appreciate just what this school can do to help children of all kinds find their feet in this world. Will was here during the second half of the 90’s, and so at the same time I was anxious too about the future for Stoke College.

When I retired from business just after the turn of the Millennium, I offered to help. And so, for nearly five years now, I’ve served as a Governor here. Recently, I succeeded Kathy Reddick as Chairman. Over the past five years, the governors and the staff here at Stoke have gone a very long way – an amazing distance, really – in transforming our school into a stable and successful institution. I’d like to start by thanking Kathy for her contribution to that success.

And then I want to draw you a fresh picture of where we hope to take this excellent small independent school of ours in the next five years.

When I first joined the governing Board, Stoke possessed one enormous strength and one debilitating weakness. Stoke’s strength was in providing broad and balanced development to pupils of every kind. It did this, and continues to do so, by identifying each pupil’s personal capacities, and encouraging the pupil to make the most of them. At the same time encouraging children to take responsibility for themselves and those around them, so they grow up with an independent outlook and the confidence to take the initiative when needed.

Stoke’s weakness was to provide this excellent education to too few pupils. In the 1990’s the College had become - at best - becalmed, in terms of facilities and pupil numbers. By September 2000, as I was joining the Board, pupil numbers had hit a low. There was a big backlog of maintenance and repair. There was great dependence on the loyalty of teaching staff, whose pay had fallen far short of levels in state schools. And management depended totally on the efforts of the valiant, optimistic, but desperately over-stretched Head Master, John Gibson.

What did we do?

We have taken three big steps to correct this.

Our first step was to redefine the school’s aims. We set two over-riding goals. First, to continue to provide the best possible individual nurture for children of all abilities in small classes in an attractive environment. Second, to expand pupil numbers, by 50% eventually, in order to generate growing surpluses for reinvestment.

Our next step was to establish a five-year strategic plan, with clear targets against which to measure our progress. That plan is based on listening to our stakeholders, and on rigorous factual research and analysis too.

The governing board adopted the first 5-year plan back in 2002. We now revise it every year in late summer along with our annual budget. The plan identifies about 15 core targets. Each target carries objective measures, and milestones to be achieved term by term along the way.

Moreover, those targets are there to be achieved as a whole, and in a balanced way. The governors have no room to pursue, say, exceptional sports facilities at the expense of paying staff properly.

Targets for improvement

So for the next few minutes, I’ll just take you through some of these targets and our progress towards them.

1. First of all, what about that key task of expanding the school? Pupil numbers are 26% higher than they were five years ago. That’s almost exactly halfway towards our ultimate goal of 240 pupils, excluding the Nursery. We have a top target of 240 because that’s what we can accommodate with our existing staff and facilities, with our small classes, while preserving our character and ethos.

That growth of ours is counter to the trend for all independent schools in East Anglia, which has been roughly flat. Why are we progressively succeeding? Advertising helps a bit. But I get a strong sense too that our local reputation is improving, and our reputation among feeder schools – schools which send us pupils. And if you visit us, we look better, sprucer, sharper, more confident than we used to do. Our pupils, too, are among our best marketing assets. Again and again, I meet pupils who come up and talk to visitors in a friendly, open manner.

2. As parents will know, we have also increased fee levels. We are now close to the median in every age group for independent schools in our area. We do our best to restrain fee increases, but parents will recognise – I believe – that good education demands good staff, and that staff account for nearly 75% of our costs. We have also seen increased cost pressure to comply with more intense official regulation in several fields.

We have hugely simplified the price list – it used to be a nightmare to administer. And we have swept away bursaries and special deals because we do not see why parents who pay full fees should unwittingly fund other people unless there is severe need.

3. We have much to do to restore our infrastructure. Our long-term plan is to progressively create attractive new classrooms in the historic main house, and one day to eliminate all our non-permanent buildings. We have made a good start, with senior history, IT, and other subjects moved.

A huge repair and maintenance backlog had built up in the 90’s, and it was getting bigger year by year. To turn the tide, we have increased staff working on the premises and grounds from two to five and greatly increased the budget too. I’m also delighted to welcome back Steve Ager, who has rejoined us to head up the estates team. Steve is passionate about improving Stoke’s physical environment.

We’re keeping our facilities moving ahead too. We have fully competitive IT facilities, for example. We have good facilities for music and sports, and I’m glad to see the swimming pool heated and back in use this summer thanks to the PTA.

4. We also set targets to enhance our educational capabilities. A critical first step was the appointment of Matthew Parker as Deputy Head in September 2002. Matthew reinforced our able and experienced team of senior teaching staff led by Jane Harland and Adrian King. He brings rigour and experience to tasks such as curriculum planning, maintaining the high quality of lessons, and measuring the progress of each pupil. Matthew will be saying more about his work this morning.

Stoke is an attractive environment in which to work, yet we have also been concerned to pull back the gap which had grown between our teachers’ pay and state-sector rates. We have now – I am pleased to say - given our staff a pay increase ahead of the state sector for four years in succession. This is indeed a question of fairness – but it is also an issue of motivation, and of our ability to recruit and retain high-quality people into the future. There is further to go.

Our Learning Development Unit, run by Carole McKenny, continues to provide a service of true distinction to our pupils with dyslexia and other learning difficulties.

5. I’ve covered our expansion, our sources of income, infrastructure and educational capabilities. That leaves management and money. As well as strengthening the teaching and maintenance staff, we have greatly strengthened the business management of the school as well. The key event here was the appointment of Angela Austen, a highly experienced financial manager, as Bursar at the end of 2002.

Angela and her now expanded team have since energetically reviewed and improved every aspect of the College’s business operations and financial control.

6. You can see, then, that our team is considerably stronger in every aspect of our operations. I believe we now have a leadership with the strength and depth we need for our expansionary course.

There have also been a number of changes amongst the external governors. We now have a good list of people from a variety of useful backgrounds. We are currently looking for an experienced person from the world of education to replace Margaret Ingram, who leaves next month with our gratitude for several years of sound advice on teaching matters.

7. And finally, the money. In the past, Stoke College struggled to make ends meet. Now, with our much bigger revenue base, we can afford more of what we need – to employ the staff we need, to pay them properly, and to make progressive improvement to our facilities and infrastructure. We are reinvesting what we earn, and we do not carry surpluses from year to year. So this year we will break even. Next year we will start to make a small profit, and we will use this to begin paying down our longstanding bank loans, which date back 15 or 20 years.

Ladies and gentlemen; pupils. I am stunned by the progress Stoke College has made in just a few years. We have had enormous success, with very few setbacks. Success in growing our school, and success in improving the quality of nearly everything we do. I did not believe that rate of progress was possible. I thank every one of you – staff, parents, pupils, and well-wishers – for your contribution to it.

And thank you too for listening. You can phone or email me with your comments and ideas at any time – I’d love to hear from you. Thank you.