Tony Reeler 2020 - 2021: Covid

Tony Reeler took up office at the start of the third term, but he had already met the student leadership to start addressing the matters raised in the Memorandum which had been presented to the school. He accepted that while much had been done over the past year, much still needed to be achieved to make Bishops a more welcoming and diverse place. The discussion started there continued through the rest of the year. Council, in their response to the Memorandum, set up a Council Transformation Subcommittee, chaired by Moshe Apleni OD.

Tony Reeler made the following point in his first Prizegiving address: “We have also started trying to define masculinity and what it means to be a man in today’s world. That journey – which has so much overlap with the transformation process – will hopefully allow our boys to grow the goodness inside and to develop a new culture of manliness, redefined for current times.”

The Covid-enforced adaptations, set in place at the end of the second term when the matrics returned, were constantly having to be adjusted to meet the new requirements and state regulations during the remainder of the year, especially when the second phase struck at the end of the year. From the start of the third term, three grades at a time were able to attend classes on campus again, with the other two grades online. Matrics were always at school with the remaining four grades rotating weekly, two at school and two online. To accommodate social distancing, classes were held in a variety of unusual venues, utilising pavilions, halls, the Theatre and Mallett Centre, together with only the very largest classrooms (Science/Biology labs and the like).  By the fourth term, with the matrics away writing exams, all four other grades were again on campus. Chapel Services and Assemblies returned, and the these were rotational, by houses, with four houses at a time. The Matric Dance had to be cancelled, although House Dinners were able to be held, but only with matrics and house staff in attendance. The Matric Prizegiving was held on the Piley Rees with appropriate distancing, and the matrics had their Valedictory in the Chapel. At the end of the year, despite some restrictions being lifted, the Carol service was cancelled.

Despite the circumstances, progress was made in advancing the programme of environmental sustainability – a water purification system had been installed, and a programme of placing PV panels on roofs across the College was making good progress.

To move the academic programme forward, the Intranet had to be hugely boosted, but staff rose to this challenge and uploaded a vast quantity of learning resources and programmes. Teachers had been using Microsoft Teams since term two to establish online contact with their classes, but  this was made more complex by managing both in-person and online teaching from term three, as while the vast majority of boys returned in their allocated weeks, some boys remained at home, by choice, through illness or Covid-related circumstances. The ‘Big Ideas’ programme for 2020 had to be cancelled.

David Boyes
Maximilian Wolfson

The planned Cultural programme was wiped out, but Mark Mitchell and his staff responded by setting up “Culture Unlocked”, a weekly programme of activities live-streamed every Wednesday night with opportunities for audience participation, which, despite the disruption, ensured a constant reminder of the worlds of music, art, and everything. But the Classic Pops had to be cancelled, and the weekly concerts were re-designed to go online. Society meetings were combined and presented online. Various Art collaborative projects had been prepared, which could not materialise, but the big advances in creating and using e-portfolios was a worthy achievement for the year.

The school also had to adapt the sports programmes by offering the boys various forms of functional exercise and sports skills, while complying with all regulations to ensure their safety. In the absence of the vast majority of inter-school fixtures, the coaches had to come up with extra ideas to keep the boys motivated to attend training sessions. Cricket was the one sport which was able to continue with inter-school fixtures in term four, under specific Covid guidelines, and teams were able to play most of their regular term four fixtures.

Chris Ekron had created a structure that launched in 2020, called the Sports Performance and Wellness programme, aiming to achieve a holistic development of the boys by addressing their conditioning, performance, wellness, rehab, and injury management. The programme focused on developing gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination at the Pre-Prep, which progressed to a more specialised conditioning programme that targeted high-performance sports development, as well as promoting general wellness at the College.

The Epic (being largely an outdoors activity) was able to go ahead in November on a voluntary basis, thiss time under the leadersip of Graeme Klerck, and with special allowances made for COVID situations, but everything worked out well. Despite being voluntary, almost all grade 10 boys chose to attend Epic, requiring modifications to the programme to accommodate the largest group on Epic yet, as sadly, the 30 boys who would normally have been on exchange were unable to go, as exchanges had been cancelled.

2021 was a year in which the school had to learn to keep adjusting to the variations and demands of Covid and the community’s reactions to what the virus was doing to the ‘normal’ world. Tony Reeler’s installation took place at the start of the year, but with limited guests and the Reeler family. Full school eucharists were not possible, so shortened voluntary services were held in Brooke Chapel.

In academic matters, all grades returned to in-person lessons from the start of 2021, mostly in traditional classrooms but with some level of social distancing, while still adhering to the guidelines published nationally for schools (including masks continuing). Renewed focus was placed on using the intranet and streaming continued to a lesser degree, as while most boys had returned to school, a number were absent through illness or Covid-related concerns. This hybrid situation was almost more difficult to manage than full online teaching. The executive decided that following on from what had been learnt during Covid, it would be appropriate to launch laptops for Grade 8 boys right at the beginning of their year. The ‘Big Ideas’ programme was able to be run again, with masks and social distancing in place.

The Big Ideas group engaging with the Vuka Nomtobhoyi Orphanage. 2021

The pedagogy underpinning the ‘Big Ideas’ programme was cross-curricular inquiry-based learning. To bring this into the rest of the curriculum, the heads of department and one other member of each subject department engaged in a workshop to explore how to formulate a project-based learning activity in their subjects. Another innovation at this moment was building the Research Pathway, a roadmap that ensured that all pupils leaving Bishops in Grade 12 had been educated and challenged on the quality and presentation of their research. A different intervention in each grade was envisaged to hone information management skills, as well as to expose the pupils to various types of research and the appropriate presentation of an academic argument.

Once again Eisteddfod 2021 was affected by the Covid regulations, and while the event itself was live on campus for boys, every single performance was recorded and placed online for everyone to watch. While all of the individual performances of Eisteddfod were able to take place, none of the group activities were, so there was no House Singing, Bands, Movement or Plays. Mark Mitchell summed up his reaction to Covid by dwelling on ideas on uncertainty and creativity: “In among all of these restrictions, uncertainty and loss, we were given one of the greatest life gifts as we no longer had the choice of certainty. We all were forced to stand in a place where to move forward, we had to release the ‘known’ and stand in the place of uncertainty. This is the fertilisation ground of the greatest gift we as humans have been given – creativity.”

In another reaction to the Memorandum presented by the 2020 matrics, Bishops Pride was founded that year – the first-ever such support group at the school – and it had an extremely successful launch. Several educational meetings on various topics were held with relevant discussions thereafter and, as a result, the Bishops community has become a much more open, safe, and inclusive environment for queer students.

The new national regulations during 2021 regarding sport allowed matches, but without spectators, so live streaming of matches was set up. Then even these occasions were interrupted by the Delta variant and the third wave during July and August 2021. However, a limited rugby and hockey season was possible, and between the early part of term two and the latter part of term three, matches had been completed against SACS, RBHS, WBHS and Paul Roos. In the fourth term, greater opportunities arose once again for competitive sports. As restrictions eased towards the end of the year, spectators were once again allowed, and teams were able to go off to festivals.

The Matric Dance in its traditional form had to be cancelled again, but each house hosted an individual House Matric Dance during a late afternoon / early evening, mostly at restaurants or function venues, which ensured meeting the requirements of both the relatively early curfew and the size of gatherings of no more than 50. Year-end House Dinners were attended by matrics and grade 11s and house staff only. Prizegiving and Valedictory were able to be held live as in 2020. 56 13-year ties were earned (in 1999, it was 13).

Tony Reeler at Prizegiving: “As a College we have tried to give our boys as much as we can, with activities such as a return to winter sport, albeit for a five-week period, a return to the pools and other previously prohibited sports, an Eisteddfod, done virtually, the Bishops Community Week, a Matric lunch and social function, House Dinners and a return to the chapel for assemblies, chapel services and confirmations. We are simply going to have to live with this virus, adapting and changing as we can, going forward.”

He went on to give what might be his aim to Bishops: “I started my career at Bishops with the intention of developing the Good Man that lies within each of these young men. Goodness is a concept on its own and can be part of any person – how we treat others, with kindness, respect, and value for their being. Living out the spirit of ubuntu each day. Maleness is a different concept and the positive aspects of masculinity have been shared widely as we use our male strengths to support and grow those around us. Add the two together and you get the ‘Good Man’ concept – men who reject things like toxic masculinity, gender-based violence, sexism, racism, homophobia and so on. Men who espouse goodness in all they do. Men who take the lead, as men standing up for the weak, the downtrodden, the poor, the homeless, the marginalised, the minorities. Good Men. Kind Men.”