Sport - Rugby School

2009/10
Service &
Public Benefit
Rugby School Partnership with
Future Hope
One of the many distinctive features of Rugby is its longestablished
commitment to service and public benefit activity.
Interestingly, Rugby School was a pioneer in mission work with an
“overseas mission” being established in India in 1848. This was
in honour of Henry Watson-Fox who had been a pupil at Rugby
(1831 –1836) under Dr Arnold. After Fox’s death, subscriptions
were raised by his friends at Rugby and elsewhere to pay the
salary of the Rugby Fox Master at Noble High School, a Church
Missionary School and the first Christian school in South India,
where Fox worked and died. The “home mission”, better known
as The Rugby Clubs, was founded in 1894 by an Old Rugbeian,
Arthur Walrond. Rugby School became involved in 1889 when
the Head Master, Dr Percival, decided the school should take
part in some form of social work in one of the big cities. It was
Dr Percival’s casting vote that led to Arthur Walrond’s club in
Notting Dale being chosen. Our links with The Rugby Clubs
continues to this day.
In the 1960s Rugby was one of the pioneers in developing
social service as an alternative to the CCF. The work we
continue to do today in our Thursday afternoon activities and
in our partnership and community work is a key part of Rugby
School life. Underpinning it is a recognition of the importance
of service in revealing a wider world and reminding us that
without the capacity to serve others our education counts for
very little indeed.
Rugby has had many opportunities to franchise its name for a fee
to overseas educational ventures but we have always said no. In
March 2010, though, we announced a formal partnership between
Rugby School and Future Hope School in Kolkata in India. This is
radically different from what other schools have done and we are
delighted, as a community, to have the opportunity to provide
educational support to Future Hope School on a charitable basis.
Future Hope was started by an Old Rugbeian, Tim Grandage, in
the late 1980s. It is a charity that gives street children a loving
and secure home, medical care and an education. The charitable
school, for pupils aged 5 -19, provides an outstanding all-round
education (based on Rugby School’s approach) to orphaned and
abandoned street children and to children from the Kolkata slums.
Since it was founded, Future Hope has helped transform the lives
of some 500 children and its central belief in the redemptive
power of education is something that has been part of Rugby’s
DNA since 1567. We have had informal links with Future Hope
for several years now and we had a sponsored walk for Future
Hope in September 2007 which raised just under £100,000. Our
formal partnership means that from now on we will be advising
Future Hope on teaching, curriculum, professional development
and governance and management. This promises to be an
exciting partnership with considerable benefits for both parties.
PSJD
Future Hope, September 2009
“Alison Aunty, you give me sticker now”, Bijoy said at least
twenty times a day. I had naïvely thought that the smiley faced
stickers I had taken over to Kolkata with me would be a good
reward for excellent work – the trouble was that the children
wanted one after every sentence they had written! When I
realised that Bijoy had helped himself to them one day and had
planted 14 on one page of simple Maths I decided that perhaps
they weren’t such a good idea after all!
Bijoy was one of thirteen pupils in Future Hope’s ‘Fast Track’,
a group of children ranging in age from 10 to 19 that have
‘special needs’ of one sort or another. To say that my teaching
skills were stretched is an understatement. One boy spoke very
little English, two were severely dyslexic and many had complex
psychological difficulties. Armed with a small piece of chalk and
a black board, I attempted to do what their dedicated teachers
do every day – never have my groaning bookshelves of fantastic
resources seemed the luxury they are. What bonded the group
was a ferocious desire to learn, a realisation of how lucky they
were and a sense of humour and generosity of spirit that
underpinned everything they did. On my last morning there
– knowing that I particularly loved one Bengali song I had heard
Ramesh, a senior student, sing at his home (one of five dotted
around Kolkata) – one of the younger pupils sneaked out of the
class and went to fetch him from his lesson in order to sing it to
me again. A beautiful solo, with the rest of the class using desks
as percussion and joining in the chorus, ensued; and puzzled
looks followed when they saw I was in tears!
Patrick and I return in July for two and a half weeks – Patrick will
teach some History classes; I will be up with Fast Track again,
perhaps armed with a few more resources this time but also
knowing that teaching will never be more rewarding than this.
Alison Derham